A Little Lesson About Being Drunk
by dwut
Summary: Did Varden just totally mess up his chances with Lei'ella? A day at the bar and a night in the rain may change this unlikely pair's relationship forever. Varden/Lei
1. Chapter 1

Varden had already had too much to drink.

He was in the state of mind between total unconsciousness and limited awareness. What he was aware of was that the barmaid was wearing a low top, and that she seemed to have stopped charging him for drinks a good half-hour ago. Her face and voice were fuzzy and out of focus, but she didn't seem to be talking to him, so that wasn't a big deal. Then again, maybe she was talking to him. Her voice was a little louder, her face a little less fuzzy. She was closer to him, he concluded. She was slipping his empty tankard out of his hand, and she didn't seem to be refilling it. Instead, she was leaning across the counter and saying something to him. Her low-cut shirt was painfully obvious. Varden forced himself to listen to what she was saying.

"—Pretty cute"

"What?"

"I said, you're pretty cute."

"Who is?"

"You are. "

"What?"

"In fact, I don't think I'd mind if you kissed me."

Whoa, what did she say? His mind was moving a little faster now, and it didn't quite know what it was hearing.

"But since you're a little more than drunk, I'll do the honors"

She'd do what? What was she doing? Why was she so close all of a sudden?

Then it dawned on the still conscious part of his mind—she was going to KISS him!

Unfortunately, no matter how much he'd like to stop her, his body was not going to help him out. It seemed oddly numb and detached. All too fast, the low shirted barmaid was across the counter, on his lap, and plastered to his face.

He numbly tried to push her away, but his hand accidentally made contact with a squishy bit, and judging by the fact that she only kissed him harder, she had taken the gesture the WRONG way.

This was not the way he had planned to spend his evening. What he'd meant to do was spend a nice candlelit dinner with his favorite Elvin girl. Of course, he didn't have the guts to just ask her out on a date. Instead he had said; "Gee, Lei'ella, the hotel food sucks, fancy going out to eat?" And she said; "I suppose you plan to STEAL the food eh?" Then without even giving Varden a chance to answer, she whacked him on the head with a rolled up piece of paper and told him to get the hell out.

So now he was at the pub, and some barmaid was taking the very place he had hoped Lei'ella might be tonight. Which so just wasn't fair, but he didn't seem to have the willpower to pull away.

"Hey you two, cut it OUT!"

Varden sat blinking in surprise, ice water dribbling down his shirt. The barmaid had jumped out of his lap as if stung, and the bar had gone silent, and everyone was watching him. He didn't know what he expected to see when he turned to face his attacker, but whatever he had guessed was certainly not what he got.

All he got was a pair of lovely golden eyes, looking suspiciously wet.


	2. Chapter 2

**In my story, Lei is NOT YET DEHOODED**!!!!!!! **I didn't really like the way it really happened, so I'm rewriting it...p.s...there may be a bit of a spoiler for those who havn't read the comic lately..**

**nothing is mine, so here we go, chap 2**

**A Little lesson about being Drunk**

Suddenly, Varden was very, VERY sober.

" I think you may have had enough", she said. Her voice was steady, but even though she was hiding under her cloak, he could see the tears in her eyes.

Varden took a glance around. Everyone in the bar had been staring in interest for a moment or two, but by this point they had all returned to their activities. The wet barmaid was serving drinks furiously on the other end of the bar, sending Lei'ella looks of death every few seconds.

Varden took a few staggering steps towards the door before Lei'ella stiffly took his arm and led him into the street.

Every block or so Varden snuck a glance at the stony silent woman, and every time her eyes were dry, her face expressionless.

When they got back to the inn they were staying at, Varden carefully lowered himself into a chair and put his head in his arms on the table. Still nothing was said between the two of them, and the silence was growing more and more painful. He wished she would take off her hood and admit to being the elf he knew she was. Then, he would be able to have a real relationship with her, not an awkward friendship full of lies.

At least, vocally, they were silent. Lei'ella was banging and slamming in the little kitchen, making what could easily be considered far more noise than was necessary.

Several times he tried starting a sentence—something along the lines of—"Sorry about….er…I didn't mean for…" But nothing ever seemed to sound right in his head, so he stayed silent.

Gradually the sky outside darkened and Lei'ella stopped banging so much in the kitchen. The place started to smell pretty darn good, and Varden had no choice but to take his aching head out of his hands and stick his head cautiously around the kitchen door.

"Er…"

Lei'ella, who had been standing at the stove whipped around with a frying pan in her hand looking more than a little dangerous.

"Yes?" She asked curtly, icy anger in every bit of the word.

"I was wondering what smelled so good." Said Varden, hoping not to be chased from the hotel with a hot frying pan.

She didn't respond, but raised an eyebrow questioningly. Praying that this meant she wasn't going to kill him, Varden moved farther into the kitchen and peered into the big simmering pot on the stove. "Oh, pasta." Said Varden carefully. "Enough for two, by any chance?"

Lei'ella raised her other eyebrow and regarded him with a look that may have been able kill several small animals before turning to the cabinet and taking out a second bowl that she set on the counter next to the pot.

Guessing the answer to his question had been 'yes', Varden muttered "Thanks", before trouping back into the living room and laying out cups and placemats on the rickety little table there.

About ten minutes later, Varden was facing Lei'ella over his steaming bowl of pasta, and once again, he had absolutely nothing to say to her. The days of their voyage had been long and boring, but the pair of them had experienced no problems talking to one another. Several times, he opened his mouth to say something, _anything. _He almost said something about the weather, which was currently working itself up into a huge rainstorm outside of the dirty window, but decided that it was better to be silent than to sound stupid.

"I wanted to ask you about something." Said Lei'ella so abruptly that Varden dropped his fork and sent a meatball flying. There was nothing in the tone of her voice that suggested even a hint of anger. Coming back from under the table where he had stooped to retrieve his fork, Varden looked at Lei with his eyebrows raised.

"What's that?"

"What are you going to do when I've gotten back to my house?"

Varden sat thinking for quite a bit before he answered her. They had already dropped Neirenn back with her father, and carried Acheron's body back to his mother. Lei'ella was next to be delivered back home, and Varden honestly had been too preoccupied lately to think of what he was going to do after that.

"Well, I 's'pose I'll be going back to thieving again…"

"Oh." Said Lei'ella. And from what he knew of women, she sounded rather put out.

"Unless…" Varden hesitated, looking up at Lei who was staring back at him with those shockingly golden eyes. "Unless you needed me to do something else for you first?"

"I could use a little help on the house." She said, waving her hand as if it didn't really matter whether or not he decided to help out.

"Well I could probably do that."

"Really?"

"Oh, I don't see why not…what else have I got to do with myself?"

Lei'ella looked up at him sharply before muttering so he could barely hear—"I thought you might want to come back here to stay with your barmaid."

"No! I mean she just…she was…I didn't…you know…fheessmgh. He ended incohesivly when he realized that she was grinning at him over the table. "What!?"

"You." She said with a smile still tugging at the corners of her mouth.

Varden didn't bother to ask what she found so funny about 'him', and as long as she was actually talking to him again, he didn't really care.

"So about the work on the house." Said Varden, feeling considerably lighter hearted. "What needs to be done? And where will I stay, exactly?"

"Oh you know, this and that. You could…erm…stay there with me while you fixed it up…?"

Sensing that there was more to that statement, Varden asked, "and under what conditions would I be able to do that?"

Lei picked at a very interesting spot on the table for a moment before answering. "I thought maybe you could stop thieving—just for the time you stay."

Feeling that he might be walking the plank in about ten seconds, Varden picked a thread in his pants as he said, "Well only if you stop keeping secrets from the people who care about you."

After he said it, Varden let the statement hang for a few moments before chancing a glance at a possibly very angry Lei'ella. Finally he did manage to look up at her, sitting exactly where she had been, no change of expression whatsoever, not a single thing different--

But with her hood down.


	3. Chapter 3

Well I have to admit that I had totally forgotten about this story which I began writing in 2006. Though I no longer have any idea where I was going with the original concept, I decided it still had potential. I also happened to receive a review right at the end of the year from the lovely _**Sadrain **_and remembered just how much I dislike unfinished stories and since I'm on break and have the time….why not! So there you go, you review stories and sometimes you bring the author out of 5 year hiatus! So here it is, the final chapter of _**A Little Lesson About Being Drunk.**_

"I KNEW IT!"

Varden found himself on his feet, flushed with exhilaration. Lei'ella gaped up at him, newly revealed bangs just gracing her wide eyes.

In the frozen moment when he towered above her, his mind registered everything about her. Her eyes seemed so much brighter when freed from the shadow of the cloak, the color all the more peculiar. In combination with the glowing sweep of her hair, she looked somewhat ethereal. In her left ear a strange earring hung glinting in the dim light and Varden considered for the first time the wealth of questions about Inverloch he had for her, ones that she could perhaps spend a lifetime answering for him.

And then the moment was gone and Lei'ella's pure surprise melted immediately into something like panic. In one jerky motion she was reaching back over her shoulders to pull the hood over her head. Still poised practically on his tiptoes, Varden threw out a hand to stop her.

"No don't!" He cried, and forced himself back into his chair. "I didn't mean to startle you, only you startled me and I…I…"

She had stopped trying to put her cloak back on though her arms still hovered awkwardly right at her shoulders and her gaze was somewhat scandalized.

"…I like your ears!" It was quite possibly the stupidest thing Master Thief Varden had ever said. Was she blushing? "What I meant was that I've known about the Elvin thing all along" he explained hastily "I was pretty sure all the way back in Muirfold, and then when I saw you speak with Kayn'dar—sorry Silvah—I knew for sure."

"'The Elvin Thing'?" she replied, hands now lowered but with one eyebrow arched so high it had disappeared beneath her bangs.

"Oh I said it wrong" said Varden with a cocky semblance of his old ways. "What I meant was that you are of Elvin heritage. There, is that better?"

There was a smile starting in the corner of her mouth and Varden could feel his heart rate returning to some semblance of normality.

"So you've known all along all you were just waiting like a noble knight in shining armor for me to reveal it myself?" She asked, eyebrow still raised to the nth degree.

"Basically, yeah." Said Varden leaning back in his chair, surveying her with half lidded eyes and a grin. "I was just waiting until you figured out that I like you for who you are and that the size of your ears is no big deal."

"Yeah" she said weakly, looking down at her empty bowl. "No big deal".

As much as he wanted to sit and drink her in with his eyes, he figured that she needed some time to herself. It wasn't every day that a person had to sober up their traveling mate, make dinner in a rage, and then reveal their largest secret. Varden stood again, this time less violently, and picked up her bowl and his before carrying both to the kitchen and busying himself with the dishes. Out in the other room the second chair squeaked back and he heard her make her way across the room to the window.

* * *

Varden lay sprawled on the somewhat lumpy sofa, having demanded Lei'ella use the bed. It was raining in earnest now and the hard water droplets against the window were keeping him wide-awake. Well, that and the extreme physical awareness of Lei'ella lying in the bed less than fifteen feet away, also clearly awake. He was certain that if he peeked over the edge of the sofa he would be able to see her peculiar eyes glowing in the dark room. About forty minutes ago he had heard her slide out of bed and walk back over to the window where she had passed a good deal of the evening. What or who she was looking for, he had no idea. The agitation that had accompanied her trip to the bar and subsequent de-hooding seemed to have left her completely and so he wondered what on earth this fixation was about.

These thoughts spinning around in his head, he was still thoroughly awake a quarter of an hour later when she slipped out of bed and tiptoed across the floor _again_. Feigning a sleepy sigh he turned over so he'd have a better view of her over the arm of the sofa. She was standing at the window with her forehead against the glass, arms wrapped around her middle. The streetlight outside was creating a halo around her and the rumpled day clothes she was still wearing seemed far more grand than they really were. Maybe it was the elf in her that made her seem so graceful and self-assured in everything she did, he thought. But then there were moments when she was all too human, so why did he have such an inflated vision of her? Maybe it was love. The thought had slipped into his head unabated and he didn't immediately force it away, but instead continued to watch her at the window. Finally he spoke.

"What are you doing?"

She practically jumped out of her skin, spinning around at the window to look at him with wide eyes. Clearly she had not been as painfully aware of his wakefulness as he had been of hers. He quietly congratulated himself on his superior thief qualities.

"You scared me!" she said, but didn't move from the window. "I'm just watching the rain, it's my favorite kind of weather."

"In the middle of the night?" Varden asked with disbelief.

"Well, I couldn't sleep. I have too much on my mind." She replied.

Detangling himself from the covers he crossed the room to stand beside her and look out of the window. "What's on your mind?"

She didn't seem inclined to share, however, and instead surprised him with her next statement.

"Rain like this—it reminds me of that song, oh how does it go? _If you like Piña Coladas and getting kissed in the rain…"_

"Caught" Varden corrected immediately.

"What?" she replied, turning from the window slightly to look at him.

"_Getting caught in the rain—_those are the words. It's not kissed, it's caught."

"Oh." She said thoughtfully, back to looking out of the window. There was a comfortable pause in the conversation and then she said quite unabashedly; "I'd much rather be kissed in the rain than caught in it."

Varden started at her. He had known a lot of women, and he knew without a doubt that they liked to drop hints left and right. If this wasn't a hint, he didn't know what was. It was raining. It had been raining all night. She wanted to be kissed in the rain. He wanted to kiss her. What the heck? It had already been one of the strangest days he'd ever experienced. He reached out and grabbed her hand, leading her across the room, out the door, and into the rain.

* * *

The first thing that she did when they stepped into the night was shiver. Being the chivalrous manly thief that he was, his instinct was to throw an arm around her shoulders. She reacted positively, leaning heavily into his side and wrapping both arms around his waist. They stood frozen like that for several minutes; both aware of what came next, neither willing to make the first move. Finally Varden spoke, though not about the fact that they were holding each other in the rain in the middle of the night like idiots.

"What does your earring mean?"

One of the arms she had around his middle went up to touch the earring in question and his midriff mourned the loss. "Do you like it?" she asked.

"Yeah," he said, "it's cool. I figured it has some serious Elvin meaning—like the code of your tribe or something."

He felt her laugh, rather than hearing it. "My tribe? She laughed. "No, I just like it"

It was then that she looked up at him and he realized with a start that he had never been this close to her. It was very thrilling. The earring in question was dripping onto her shoulder and half of her body was pressed against his. He leaned down towards her and she seamlessly tilted her head a little to the left as if they had rehearsed it. As their lips made contact she leaned more completely into him so that their bodies were practically fused in the rain.

He wasn't cold in the slightest anymore and as her hands slid down his neck and into his collar he actually felt quite _warm. _They continued in this way for a very satisfying amount of time and probably looked like quite a spectacle—the human man and the Elvin woman embracing in the rain, glued to each other in a completely wonderfully natural way. Finally though they did break apart and Varden opened his eyes to find her grinning up at him.

"Yup." He said. "I like getting kissed in the rain."

"But do you like Piña Coladas?" she asked, playfully raising an eyebrow.

"Only if you're serving" he laughed "I'm never going anywhere near that barmaid again!"

Judging by her next kiss…and the ones after that, it seemed to have been the right answer.

* * *

And that's it folks! Please do drop a review, I like them. I'm feeling the mood to write a Disney's 'Tangled' fanfiction so if you're interested...stay tuned!

-dwut


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